Case Studies On The Influence Of Multiple Drafts Upon The Linguistic Quality Of Narrative Writing

Process approach is a kind of teaching mode that students rewrite the same piece of writing more than once.In 1970s,it was introduced into second language writing.In the field of teaching writing in foreign countries,many teachers encourage their students to finish multiple drafts on the same writing and provide feedback in time to help students improve their writing quality.Therefore,there are numerous studies about multiple drafts writing.However,in China,empirical researches in this field are relatively few.Five freshmen from Dalian Maritime University participate the present research,a multiple drafts writing practice on narrative writing which lasts for seven weeks.In this case study,the participants’ every draft is analyzed in terms of accuracy,fluency,vocabulary complexity and grammatical complexity,which aims to explore the influence of multiple drafts writing on linguistic quality of narrative writing.In the whole writing process,the participants are required to complete multiple drafts on the same narrative writing and every draft receives written feedback in time,which includes direct feedback and indirect feedback.In addition,the teacher constructs writing modeling in class to help them enhance their writing ability.There are two semi-structured interviews after the participants finish their second draft and the third draft respectively which intend to probe the participants’ perceptions of multiple drafts writing,the perceptions of written feedback and perceptions of teacher’s teaching modeling in class.The quantitatively result shows that multiple drafts writing generally does improve narrative writing linguistic quality,especially in aspects of accuracy and grammatical complexity.By comparison,the improvement of vocabulary complexity is slight.For each individual,the linguistic quality changes vary from person to person.The qualitatively result demonstrates that all five participants hold the positive attitudes towards multiple drafts writing.According to them,multiple drafts writing is helpful to improve linguistic quality.Besides,the teacher’s written feedback plays an important role in enhancing their writing ability.In the interviews,the participants state that they hold positive attitudes towards writing modeling.Provided with teacher’s version and students’ versions,the participants can know the differences clearly,which impels them to think and learn actively.Multiple drafts writing emphasizes the writing process and provides feedback in time.It has great significance on teaching college English writing in China.